Living Lean: Donna Johnson and the Bottlenecks

Abstract

This case is part of the Living series, which presents accessible, everyday scenarios for a Lean process-improvement journey. In this episode on bottlenecks, an entrepreneurial stay-at-home mom contends with the limits of her own productivity and a shared laundry facility. Excerpt UVA-OM-1449 Rev. Nov. 4, 2013 LIVING LEAN: DONNA JOHNSON AND THE BOTTLENECKS Illustrations by Michael Twery. Donna Johnson lived in Trendy Hills, an apartment complex just north of the Darden School of Business, where her husband, Jordan, was a first-year MBA student. Donna had given birth to their son, Jake, only months before Jordan entered the program, and because her husband was often gone until late at night, Donna frequently found herself alone in the apartment with the baby. Out of boredom one day, she began to read the large casebooks that Jordan kept stacked in a precarious pile by the front door. Her favorite were the cases on Operations. Donna decided that she would do something with her time, so she began to research ideas for small businesses. She knew she'd stumbled upon something great when she saw some advertisements on Facebook for a local jewelry maker. “My designs are more stylish than that,” she thought. “I could drive traffic to a website with my own jewelry, using social media and other search engine optimization techniques. It's the perfect way to spend the time that Jake doesn't need me.” . . .